Using DMX Control with a midi foot controller

I have just found DMX controller on the web and it seems a good piece of software. I can see from the manual that it is possible to control the software via midi. However, can anyone tell me if it is possible to control with a midi foot controller that only outputs program change messages. I have an ART midi foot controller that I have tested using Midi Ox and can see that it outputs only midi program change messages, as per the manual. I want to be able to control my DMX lighting rig with the foot controller.

Any help appreciated.

Will

Hi,

I have played with the software now and have found out how to connect a midi foot controller and define what is being transmitted by it - the information was buried in a manual. I have my ART unit connected now (used Midi-Ox to verify as I've used this before).

However now I have seen another problem - you can cannot create a device unless a definition of the device exists in a pre-defined list - and my lights are not in the list (I am using a few KAM Parbars along with some Showtec Par 56 LED cans - there Is a Showtec Par 64 device defintion and I have looked at the device XML file which seems to be the same as a Par56 would be so might be usable). I' wondering if I could create a device definition XML document for the Kam units by copying one of the existing ones and changing the channel values. I know that the Kam unit uses 15 channels and the first three are used for the whole unit with the next 12 being split into 3 channels per individual lamp in the unit. I think that I can see how to do this.

OK thanks JP. That looks interesting. I have downloaded this and had a quick look.

I have been reading the manual and am still having problems understanding the principles of DMX Control. I have been using a Showtec 48 channel lighting desk and it's really easy to program for my lights (I cant use this anymore as I no longer have a lighting engineer to operate the desk for me - I'm in a band and now have to control the lights with my feet - hence the need to use my midi foot controller).'

What I'm trying to do is create number of light scenes where lights will show different colours according to which button has been pressed on the midi foot controller (for example button 1 turns all lights to white, button 2 turns all lights to red etc). I have read in the manual that scenes can be created but I not sure if this is the same thing that I want to achieve. I also need to have "chase" sequencies where a number of "scenes" are played consecutively, one after the other, according to pre-set timing, and the chase keeps looping back to the beginning until another midi command causes a different chase / scene to be displayed.

Do you think that this can be done with DMX Controller?

Hi HOC,

Thanks for the reply.

I can see the "chasers" option in the module dropdown of the midi configurator and can understand how this would be associated with a particular midi command coming from my foot controller. I will read the manual again today and see if I can work out out how to set this up. Thanks for your advice so far. I hope you don't mind if I come back with further questions. It might take a while before I fully understand how to program DMX Control.

Hi HOC,

OK I'm getting the idea of how this works. First I connected my midi foot controller and was then able to define the buttons on it and what signal was being transmitted by each. I could see the signal in the "midi remote window. "Next I added some devices, although I had to create a new device using the DDF creator mentioned by JP earlier in the thread. I think that I did that correctly. Then I created some "scenes / cues" in the Cue list. Then I created some "chasers" with the effects sequencer by adding in cues from the list. Then I configured the controls for the midi using
module = chasers,
device/function = the chase name from the list
channel = start

Now I have a question
1. if the channel value = start turns the chase on does it turn off automatically when I select another chase with a different midi message (e.g. press button 1 - start chase 1 press button 2 - stop chase 1 and start chase 2 ? If not then how do you stop a chase - it would be impractical to have a button on the midi controller to start a chase and then another button to stop it.

I hope that your supported interface page is up to date as I have just ordered the DMX4All Transmitter Mini-USB-DMX as this seems to be the most reasonably priced interface cable.

Hi Uwe,

Thanks for your answer.

OK I understand what you mean but that's not what I want to achieve. What I want is for one midi button to start a chase and then for that chase to stop when I press another button to start another chase. When you are running this in a live band situation it's impractical to have to press a button on the foot controller to start a chase and then press it again to stop the chase before you press another to start a different chase. What is needed is this:

Press button # 1 = stop the current chase and start chase # 1
Press button # 3 = stop the current chase and start chase # 3
Press button # 5 = stop the current chase and start chase # 5

Can this be done? If not then the midi control function has no practical use. When you use a lighting desk like my Showtec Showmaster if you put the desk in chase mode and select a chase it automatically ends the previous chase. I have used a few desks and they all operate this way.

Will H

Hi to All,

I have another problem.
I have bought the DMX 4 All mini USB to DMX cable. I plugged it in to my PC and it loaded a driver from the included CD. Now how do I get DMX Control to use it?
I have been in to "settings / output plugins" and I can see the DMX 4 All usb listed so I've ticked the checkbox. When I take the option to configure it all the text is in German (understandable as it a German product I suppose) however I can't understand it. I have selected COM1 as the port as i can see the DMX 4 All cable in my device manager under COM1 and it says that it is enabled.
By clicking on one of the on-screen buttons in the configurator I can see some text on the config window that seems to indicate that the cable has been seen. It says this:

Mini-USB-DMX-Interface MKII V1.10
(c) 2009 DMX4ALL GmbH
>>> https://forum.dmxcontrol-projects.org/www.DMX4ALL.eu <<<

USB connected

However when I go to the Effectsequencer (Chaser tool) and select a chase to run nothing happens when I click on the button nor when I press a button on midi foot controller.
I can see the midi msg arriving in the Midi Remote window so I know that DMX Control is receiving the midi msg.

I really need some help to get this working. Thanks.

Will H

Hi Uwe,

Thanks again for your response. I had already done the things that you specify in your reply except for the "midi learn", which I will now try. I have now managed to get a dmx signal to a showtec par 56 led light (I used a device description from the DMX Control list). This seems to work if you use the "play selected chaser" button on the Chaser tool window. The only problem is that it takes 4 seconds for the light to turn on after you have pressed the button. Unusable.

I still haven't managed to get the software to turn on lights with my midi foot controller but I'll try to set up a new definition for my controller in the Midi remote control entry window and see what happens. I'll let you know.

Never apologise about your English. It's not bad at all.

Will

Hi Uwe,

OK now I've got the midi foot controller turning on the light. The fade time was set to "0 0 0". I've set it to "0 0 1" and the delay is down to 2 to 3 seconds. Still not usable unfortunately. I can see from the change of data in the midi remote window that the message from the foot controller is being seen immediately by the software without any delay. So the delay is coming in the software.

Starting and stopping a chase with one button will not give me the solution that I need. I need the current active chase to stop when I press the button for the next chase. I can't see any way to do this in the software. When you are using the "chaser tool" window, as far as I can see, you have to stop one chase before you can start the next. This is crazy.

I've also just noticed something odd about how DMX Control works. I've set 3 cues or a single light, red, green and blue. I want to have a chase that cycles between the colours, first red then green then blue. so I set up a chase and added the cues. when I run the chase red comes on (still after 2 or 3 seconds), next should be green but when green comes on red stays on and likewise when blue comes on. So now the light is white. Surely the purpose of having a scene chaser is that as you move from one scene to another the previous scenes turns off. If you have to turn it off by having a blackout scene then you will have no light for the time it takes to get to the next step in the chase. I just can't see how this could be used in a real world environment. Am I completely misunderstanding how DMX Control works or just doing something fundamentally wrong?

Will H

Hi Stefan / Uwe,

Here's something really odd - I just pressed the blackout button on the main menu bar a few times and amazingly the chase now responds instantly to the midi foot controller message. I shut the app down and opened it up a few times and it continues to respond instantly - so no idea what happened there but good news.

Excellent advice about selecting all the channels and setting the values to zero for the colours not being display. this works perfectly.

I'll try the Grouping now and see if I can get this to work.

I'm not using my Kam Parbar device definition at the moment so that will be my next challenge. It could be that there is something wrong that device definition.

Thanks for your help and guidance guys.

Will H